I’m cursing and swearing, I can’t even call work to tell them I’m going to be late, and then I think that I could actually ask a neighbour for help. The only neighbour I know to talk to is Michael downstairs, and he’s always in, and I don’t imagine it’s the first time he’s seen a young man in a pair of shorts, so I tiptoe down the cold concrete steps, holding my hands under my armpits because it really is quite cold despite the advancing spring, and knock on his door.

‘Oh I say, is it my birthday?’ he says, standing in the doorway with a big smile on his face. I explain that I’ve locked myself out and ask if I can use his phone, and he says, ‘That’s the oldest one in the book,’ and then goes into the kitchen chuckling to himself while I call the office. I don’t tell them all the gory details, because I can do without the piss-taking, but I do tell them that I’ve lent the keys to a friend and I don’t know when he’s coming back.

Michael’s standing in the kitchen doorway with two cups of coffee. ‘So has he moved in, then?’ he asks, handing me one.

‘Not officially.’

‘He’s here a lot though, isn’t he?’

‘Quite a lot.’ I’m slightly disturbed by the fact that he knows so much about my private life, and hope that he doesn’t hear too much banging through the floor. The coffee is disgusting instant stuff, but I’m grateful for the warmth.

‘I’m very pleased for you. He seems like a nice lad.’

‘He is, thanks. Very nice,’ I say, wondering if that’s actually true. Stuart is many things – sexy, funny, optimistic, energetic, spontaneous – but I’m not sure if ‘nice’ is one of them.

‘You get a ring on his finger as soon as you can.’

‘It’s a bit early to be thinking about that,’ I say.

‘That’s what I kept saying,’ says Michael, ‘and look where it got me. It’s always a bit early, and then all of a sudden, it’s too late.’

‘But I’ve only known him for two months,’ I say, hoping that he’s not going to start crying.

‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘here I am boring you with my worldly wisdom and you’re standing there without a stitch of clothing on.’ His eyes travel from my face down to the floor, back up to my groin, up, down and finally up again. I laugh nervously, and cross my legs like a girl.

‘I think some of his things might fit you,’ he says, disappearing into the bedroom. ‘If you don’t mind wearing a dead man’s clothes.’

This was what my mother always used to say when I came home from college wearing stuff from charity shops. It didn’t bother me then, so I can’t really change my tune now.

‘He was about your build,’ Michael says, coming out with a couple of shirts and a pair of trousers, ‘perhaps a little bit taller. Kept his figure right to the end, you know. Very proud of that, he was.’